


When She Falls

by Hecate



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7030219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looks at her as if she's human. She had forgotten how that feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When She Falls

The first time Mai saw Thomas, he still belonged to the good guys. His sharp edges and sharper words held him apart from the people around him but he fought for them with key strokes and brilliant ideas.

He didn't matter to her. The ground was sure and steady beneath her feet, smooth and without obstacles. No reason to climb, no reason to tumble and fall. Business as usual, so to say, and she never expected things to be otherwise.

A few months later, he finds her and he is anything but good. He's angry, angrier than before; sharper, too, focused on a mission that will break the world apart.

She thinks he's beautiful like this.

He wants her on his side, he wants her to be his weapon, and it should amuse her. He isn't the first man to try to pull her in, after all; there have been so many before him. Villains and misunderstood boys, maniacs and all too righteous leaders. Sometimes she followed their call, their offers good enough; sometimes she left them in pieces, broken bones and broken plans.

But with Thomas, it's different. His offer is a promise, it's the touch of his hand against her waist and the slight quirk of his lips, it's his words and his mind and the way he looks at her like she isn't a weapon or the last step he needs to take to fulfil his plans but something far greater.

He looks at her as if she's human. She had forgotten how that feels.

She falls in love, then, crash-lands with the velocity of light, and she never manages to climb out of the crater. It's ridiculous and it's dangerous, getting pulled into his mess and his revenge, but it's better than the tedious succession of employers she killed for.

She fights his war, turns herself into his knight, guns and blood and plans, and throughout all of this he looks at her like she is everything. It makes Mai wonder, sometimes, if she could stop him, if he would give up on his schemes if she just asked him to.

Maybe, probably, but she wants him to be happy, and she doesn't care enough about the world to choose it over him. It's only the world, after all, and there's not much in it that is worth anything to her. She thinks that makes her evil, a villain, but she discards the thought soon enough. She has never been one of the good guys, never fought the good fight, so it doesn't matter, not really, not as long as Thomas looks at her with clear eyes and touches her with sure hands.

Not as long as she knows that everything will be just fine.

It's an illusion, of course, but Thomas had taught her the fine art of lying to herself just so she only has to acknowledge the truth in pieces. They're idiots, the both of them, pulling each other in too deep with only Thomas' mission holding them up, and his focus on his past is a distraction even when it appears as if his aim is true. 

Mai doesn't care.

She doesn't care when they bomb the hackers, easy targets and easy kills; she doesn't care when they start to play with the city and the nation, the computer systems like violin strings under their fingers, the chaos a symphony. 

She doesn't care when McClane enters the game with his bravado and threats, she doesn't care when his words turn into consequence. She probably should have. Months ago, with someone else on her side, she would have.

But Thomas has a mission, Thomas walks the path he has chosen after his life fell apart, and she would never let him walk it alone, even though she thinks that they have to change their direction. He wouldn't listen, not unless she asks him to leave it all behind. And it's too late for that; they're trapped in their own plan by now, rats in the sewer. They have to see it through. 

And they will.

He kisses her before she leaves, and it's sweet like 'See you later' and sharp like 'We're going to win' and she wants to believe in the taste of his mouth. But he looks after her as she walks away, calm and finite, and it feels like goodbye. 

Mai doesn't turn around to look at him, refuses to echo his thoughts. They're gonna win this.

Things will be just fine.

McClane finds her and she fights him, and it's dirty and bloody and hard. She is scared in the middle of it, suddenly, and she can't remember ever feeling like this between kicks and hits and the feeling of fists against the softness of a body.

But then, she never had a place to return to after a fight, only a base, only money and the transiency of her leaders. It's different now, and she loses her grip on the fight, on the car hanging in the shaft, and there is no ground beneath her feet, nothing to land on, only the concrete far below to break her fall and her body.

'Oh,' she thinks when she slips, 'Oh,' and suddenly, with clarity, 'Thomas,' and she can't really remember when she fell in love with him, only that she did, that she loves him, and that it's all over now.

And Mai is falling again.


End file.
